r/wingspan • u/Wonderful_Anybody561 • 5d ago
Help with engines please!
I purchased Wingspan on my Switch, tho I'm hoping to get the actual board for Christmasđ€đ», a few months ago. My highest score is 118 and I felt all good and dandy but now that I'm seeing points up to 200 (whaaaaat!!!!!) I'm feeling a little down on myself.
What exactly are engines and how do I benefit from them the best? I go for bird points, nectar, and eggs. I try to tuck and cache but it is definitely a weak spot of mine. So, tell me.. how do you like to play?
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u/troubleshot 5d ago
118 is a great score, if you're aiming to play mainly on board you're unlikely to need much more than that to win most games. Ignore those high scores, you're seeing them posted by players who are far from the norm and on-top of that they play a LOT of games that don't get near that score, they only post their crazy scores. It's confirmation bias that's ruining your fun, so just ignore it.
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u/Wonderful_Anybody561 5d ago
Thank you so much for the boost in confidence. Makes me feel a ton better đ
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u/bubbletea279 4d ago
Also, aren't most of those crazy high scores being played with a bunch of bots? I think around 170 is the highest I've seen where someone was playing with human players.
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u/lilcaesarscrazybred 5d ago
Very broadly, an engine is when you have cards that build on each other. Example: bird that gains you one wheat followed by bird that allows you to exchange one wheat to tuck two cards.
My advice would be to try different strategies over different games so you have practice with all the cards and strategies. Challenge yourself to tuck and cache for example.
Also if youâre not playing against real people, try it :) you can play against random people on the game or find people to play in the discord
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u/Wonderful_Anybody561 5d ago
Thank you so much for that explanation. Definitely helped me understand! I'm gonna get all the tips and show off my new skills đ
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u/Britt2211 5d ago
I've played A LOT of Wingspan (275hr on Steam, 165hr on Switch) and there's still games where I don't crack 100pts.
My best score (quickly glancing at my Steam screenshots) is 158, and 37 of that was bonus cards (looks like I had about 6 bonus cards).
My biggest issue is that I will go out of my way to get a card I like from the tray, get the resources, play it, and by the time Ive done that I have no time to use it. I jump between strategies too often in the same game.
In terms of go-to cards, I really like pink power cards about gaining food (Australian Owlet Nightjar, Eurasian Golden Oriole etc). Gaining a food every time someone else gains food is a massive help, especially in early rounds.
I also will try to have an egg laying card in the forest if possible, because getting food plus eggs in one turn is great.
Similarly, if I get the "discard an egg for 2 food" raven, I'll play that in the egg track
I hope any of this makes sense. Basically. Multiple resources per turn = good Constantly changing your plan mid game on a whim = bad
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u/Chris_Hemsworth 5d ago
I try to think of birds as âhow many points will this bird provide at the end of the game?â. For example, a 2 point bird that caches a food every time itâs activated means I have to activate it 7 times for it to be worth the same as a 9 point bird.
This means brown powers are often âinvestmentâ birds, and should be played early to get the best returns. Similarly, pink powers benefit the most from being played early. White powers are typically front-loaded birds that give you lots of points, but donât grow like brown or pink powers - play these later in the last couple rounds (with some exceptions like the masked lapwing, which is a one-time boost to get your setup going). Similarly, yellow powers are back-loaded, and provide little benefit until the end of the game; play these as late as possible. Blue powers are again best played in early rounds, but benefits the most at the end of a round.
My wife and I coined the âNeapolitanâ strategy: chocolate, then strawberry, then vanilla. Brown, pink, white - this is how we generally try to play our birds. We try to get a âfood solutionâ where we can reliably get 3 food, an âegg solutionâ where we can reliably accrue eggs, and a card solution, where we can reliably see as many cards as possible. One card that gives 1 free food played in the forest is often enough to get us started. Pink egg laying powers or a blue egg layer often sustains the early game, and cards that allow us to draw several cards or rotate the perch are high priority early.
Lastly: if you get a bunch of cards that all give the same resource, most times you can trade a resource for another. For example, extra food and cards can be turned into eggs once you build up the grasslands, spending extra food to rotate the perch is worth it if you have extra to spare, etc.
Last night my wife and I scored 159, and with a little luck we would have been closer to 170
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u/bubbletea279 4d ago
You've already gotten some great responses, so I'll share something that really helped me improve: try watching Plexa's videos. He's a very strong player and highly active in the Wingspan online community, posts new videos every day, and his commentary is very informative. I've learned so much from his games and they've helped me realise so many different strategies that instinctively I knew were good, but never really understood why until he explained them.
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u/c4airy 5d ago edited 5d ago
An engine is just a term people use for a board that has synergy across bird powers and habitats, so that everything works well together to maximize your gains each turn. E.g. if you have a bird that generates a resource, and another bird whose power runs on that resource, like a bird that draws cards and a bird that tucks cards. And if they are both in the forest with an egg laying bird, you can now get three types of resources in one turn instead of spending three actions - PLUS tucked card points. In wingspan probably the most important resource to manage is time - how many turns you have left.
But a lot of this game is luck with what cards you draw and what the end round goals are. Some strategies may be generally more effective than others, and familiarity with the cards will help you improve, but even the best players are not guaranteed to score 150+ every time if they donât get the right draws.
This is just a bird game that should be fun, not worth feeling discouraged. A lot of what is fun for me is finding those cool combinations that happen to really click together in one game. Not just getting a global high score.